The Favor
by CMW
Summary: Bertha Jorkins saw Sirius Black kissing Florence behind the greenhouse


**The Favor  
A Marauder Era Story  
By CMW  
Disclaimer: Clearly, Ms. Rowling did not write this.  
A/N. Originally written for the fandom appreciation challenge at Immeritus.  
Characters: Snape, Black, Lupin, Florence, and Jorkins**

He sat quietly in the library, flipping through his Defensive Magical Theory, Confronting the Faceless and The Dark Arts Outsmarted. Quickly scribbling facts and opinions for his essay, Severus Snape ignored the person that stopped next to his table. He knew that his girlfriend, Florence Gobbleson, would just sit right down and start doing her homework, too. He didn't give a fig about anyone else.

"Hey Severus?"

He ignored the voice. It wasn't Florence, so he didn't care.

"Snape! Hello!"

Clenching his jaw, Severus carefully put down his quill and glared at the person. When he recognized that stupid cow Bertha Jorkins, his glare became even more poisonous. She was a pudgy seventh year Hufflepuff with a penchant for gossip, but more importantly, she was an idiot.

Lips pursed and superior expression on her face, Bertha said, "I thought you should know, I saw Sirius Black behind greenhouse five."

Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Black was even more of an idiot that Jorkins. Why on earth this moron thought that he cared where his bête noir was, he really didn't want to know. Putting as much boredom and as little Yorkshire into his tone as he could manage, he picked up his quill again and said, "That's nice. I'm busy."

He turned back to his essay but was interrupted again.

"I just thought you should know that Sirius Black isn't behind the greenhouse alone."

He looked at her one more time. "If you have a point, get to it."

Bertha's face twisted in malicious delight and said, "I saw Sirius Black kissing Florence behind the greenhouse."

In one startling moment of clarity, Severus knew it was true. He knew everyone thought Florence was too good for him, including Black. He knew his own luck with girls. Most of all, he knew Sirius-fucking-Black. He'd seduced her – he'd forced her! Severus was sure of it.

Without a word or backward glance, Severus shoved by Bertha so hard that she fetched against a nearby table. He didn't stop to help.

Neither of them noticed a very tired looking Remus Lupin behind a pile of Astronomy books, though he saw everything.

It didn't take long for Snape to get to the greenhouses, but in the time he took, Bertha Jorkins had already told fifteen people that his girlfriend was cheating on him with one of the most popular boys in school.

As soon as he saw them, Severus figured that Black knew that he had an audience. Black never would have worried that anyone would have stopped him. He was a fucking golden boy – school hero and probable future fucking savior for Dumbledore himself. Severus was going to kill him for forcing sweet Florence to kiss him.

Bertha Jorkins didn't have many friends – but three of the twats that she herded with were leaning against a tree, staring into the garden behind greenhouse five. Severus decided that Black was probably giving them the show of their miserable little lives. The herd looked over from the garden and smirked at him as he rushed down the hill. Two even dared to point. All of them laughed. However, as soon as he raised his wand to cast a hex or three, they scattered.

Seconds later, he was behind the greenhouse. Black had Florence pressed up against the glass. A Stinging Hex flung at Black had him jumping back with a yelp.

"What the fu…" Black yelled in shock as he tumbled to the ground.

"Sirius! Severus!" Florence shouted, her hands covering her suddenly bright red cheeks.

Snape rushed to Florence, hugging her like a precious doll. His voice cracked when he begged the answer to, "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

Dumbly, she shook her head and stuttered, "No… no."

"Did he touch you? Did he do anything but kiss you?" Severus demanded, his practiced, cultured voice grinding away to reveal the lower-class Yorkshire that he'd tried so hard to hide. He'd have Black up on charges, expelled and in Azkaban for this.

Florence only stuttered and blushed. Tears glistened in her pretty brown eyes and then fell down her cheeks as sob replaced the nonsense words coming from her mouth.

As the first tear fell from her nose, Severus whirled around to aim at Black. Forget Azkaban. He was going to kill the bastard. He'd done more than kiss her. He'd had his filthy paws all over her. Florence hadn't been able to fight him off.

Before the first letter of his newest hex, designed to slice into flesh, could pass through his lips, Black had him turned him upside down so that his robes fell over his head.

Florence shrieked her surprise.

Howling in rage, Snape fought through the fabric to the sound of Black's laughter.

"Nice pants you have there, Snape. Grandpa not ready to give up a few sickles to get you some new ones, yet?"

Everyone knew that Snape's grandfather was beyond wealthy – and beyond unpleasant. He was a nasty old miser that had disowned his only daughter and consigned her and his only grandson to a life of poverty until he saw fit to bestow favor upon them. Severus's baggy, graying underpants were testimony to life in a small mill town in Yorkshire. Black was the only bastard who was honest enough to say it to his face. Severus knew that everyone else thought it, though. He also knew that word that Black had flipped him over again would be all over the school by dinner. He was determined to kill him well before then.

He tried to turn himself over, tried to move the hem of his robes out of the way to get a good enough shot. Practically helpless, Severus could only curse and yell – and Black was laughing. Before he knew it, he heard someone shouting Black's name and running footsteps thumping closer.

"Moony! Look what I got!" Black called_."Petrificus Totalus!"_

Severus felt his limbs snap close to his body. His breathing became labored. Instantly, he stopped struggling. His robes fell down around his neck, his hair brushed the grass and his wand fell from his petrified fingers. He hung there, in midair, incapable of moving.

Lupin stopped running but continued wheezing for several minutes. It was common knowledge that he was sickly- none knew why. Black politely waited for his friend's breathing to slow down, not speaking over the sound of Florence's sobs. All the while, Severus's blood rushed to the top of his head. By the time Lupin was finished gasping, Severus's feet and fingers were numb and cold and he had an agonizing headache.

Finally, Lupin asked, "Where's James?"

"Flirting with Evans, where else?"

Severus couldn't hear what Lupin muttered under his breath.

In a much louder tone, Lupin said, "You have to take him down, now, Sirius."

"Why? I think he should stay here until Sprout releases the first years so they can see old Snivellus's pants, too." His tone was cavalier and he laughed the last few words.

Florence only bawled louder.

"He's going to pass out! Besides, you're going to get caught! Do you want Snape to be unconscious when Sprout walks by?" Lupin asked, trying to sound casual but edging on desperate.

Black pouted, "Spoilsport. Always the Perfect Prefect."

"Someone has to make sure that you don't get expelled! Now let him down. You don't want Dumbledore to tell your mother, do you?"

'Mother' seemed to be the magic word. Severus felt himself being turned upright again. The glare from the sun blinded him as his robes fell back to cover his arse and legs.

"Thanks," said Lupin. "You should let him go before someone comes along – or he passes out from being Petrified."

Smirking, Black said, "No, I don't think so. I fancy a chat with our boy, Snivellus, here."

"Padfoot…" Lupin sighed.

"No! I want a chat and I'd like not to get killed while I do it."

_"Incarcerous!" _Lupin said, pointing his wand at Severus. Several ropes wound of his wand and wrapped securely around him before Lupin picked up Severus's wand and leaned him back against the greenhouse wall for stability. "Look, now he can't do anything. Remove the jinx."

"Oh, fine – but only because you asked," Sirius said sweetly but with a malicious glint in his eye. "If it was anyone else asking, I'd let him pass out. Poor fellow looks like he might anyway, the way he looked when he saw his dear Florence and me."

"When he saw… you did not…"

Sirius halted mid-wand wave. "'Course I did, Moony. She was practically begging."

"You're a swine, you know that, don't you?" asked Remus in a peculiarly flat tone. His face was expressionless.

"No, I'm a dog – there's a difference," he said as he swept into a courtly bow. He sneaked a peek at Snape and smirked, knowing that neither he nor his overweight slut of a girlfriend knew what he was talking about.

"A dog in the manger is more like it." Remus rolled his eyes and sighed.

After shrugging blandly, Black pointed his wand at Snape and said the counter-jinx.

As expected, Snape slumped backward and slid down the wall with a groan of muscles too long bound. It wasn't long before he shook his head and struggled to stand again. Remus helped him up, though Snape shook him off immediately and responded to Remus's whispered apology with snarled invectives before turning to face Black again. He struggled against his binding and promised retribution of the foulest sort.

Black ignored the threats and said in a mock-friendly tone, "You should be thanking me, Snivellus. Everyone knows you're planning on marrying her. I just showed you how faithless your dear beloved really is."

Florence only bawled louder.

"You forced her!" yelled Snape, bound but struggling to break free – to kill.

"I tempted her. There's a difference," Sirius replied with a smirk. "Not that it was hard. She's already been through Ravenclaw and half of Hufflepuff."

"Liar!"

"She's the school broom! Right under your nose. I did you a bloody favor by showing you. After all, you don't want everyone laughing at you behind your back, do you?" He snickered when he said the last few words.

"You're lying! Florence, tell him!"

Florence wailed and buried her face in her hands.

"Be logical, Snivellus, if she was really yours when I flirted with her, she wouldn't have come with me. She'd have gone straight to you and said that the big, bad Gryffindor was flirting with her- and would you go hex his bollocks off, pretty please. But she didn't. She led me straight back here and shoved her hand down me drawers."

"You Confunded her! She had no choice."

"No, I didn't. I didn't have to." Black lazily pointed his wand at Florence and said, _"Finite Incantatum. _See? Nothing."

It wasn't quite nothing, though. Though she didn't jolt and babble as newly UnConfunded people normally did, Florence's hair turned from its usual beautiful raven black to mouse brown and shortened by a good fifteen inches. She screamed again and tried to cover her head with her arms.

Snape gaped. She had lied about her hair, of all of the stupid things to lie about, she lied about her hair. Her 'one pride and joy', the hair he'd dreamed about wrapping around himself as they had sex for the first time was a lie. It was brown, short and frizzy, not the beautiful stuff he loved.

Remus choked on a laugh though Sirius didn't bother to hide his own. His guffaws echoed off of the greenhouses surrounding them.

Snape spluttered, "Florence!"

She looked at him, eyes red and overflowing, nose running, and with that so strange hair she looked like a completely different girl than the one he'd pledged his life and love to. She hiccoughed and sobbed more before answering. She stood and held out her hand appealingly and made to touch his cheek in what Severus thought was supposed to be a tragic gesture but was really just lame.

"I'm so sorry, Severus." she whimpered as her hand dropped and she whirled to rush back to the safety of the castle.

He stared after her, mouth agape and his own tears threatening to fall.

Black snorted and said, "At least she didn't offer to still be friends with you – though I can't imagine why anyone would."

"I will do everything I can to make the rest of your life hell," Severus vowed. His face twisted into a snarl, exposing crooked teeth and making his nose seem even sharper. "I'm going to kill you someday, Black."

Black only laughed and said, "But not today. Good luck getting those ropes off. I'm sure a teacher will help you."

"Sirius…" said Remus, tugging him by the arm.

Black smirked and threw his arm around Lupin's shoulders as they walked away and said in a voice that carried only as far as Snape's ears, "Come on, Moony. Let's get you through the Whomping Willow before anyone notices that you're gone. We'll meet you…"

As they disappeared around the corner, Severus's eyes narrowed.


End file.
